• Produced and directed by William Castle
• Written by Robb White
• Starring
  • Vincent Price
  • Carolyn Craig
  • Richard Long
  • Elisha Cook
  • Carol Ohmart

[Fair Warning: There's no way to discuss this movie in any depth without a few major spoilers. If you haven't seen this movie yet, you owe it to yourself to experience it firsthand, not merely to have it described in the context of a review. Go see it. This review will still be here waiting.]

Classic B-movies have always been about “selling the sizzle.” Without the benefit of resources like substantive budgets and big-name movie stars, the purveyors of the drive-in wares would concentrate their resources on titillating concepts, arresting advertising materials, and in-your-face trailers. In too many cases, though, audiences found that the features thus promoted failed to live up to even the lowered expectations of those they attracted. The movies proved lackluster and perfunctory, offering no more excitement than what was to be had in the trailer, which the audience had already seen for free before another flick.

“I guess since there are two of us women here, one should do the dusting while the other gets the coffee.”

William Castle was one of the kings of B-movie hucksterism. But he realized one thing which so many of his competitors (and latter-day pretenders) did not: that there still has to be something behind the sizzle. Maybe not steak, exactly, but at least hamburger, something to satisfy viewers and leave them feeling that their money had not been stolen. Because while a trailer or an ad campaign can sell a movie, the best sales pitch is your last movie.

House on Haunted Hill is a great example of what Castle did best. It’s not high art; it’s cheap and schlocky (by the standards of the time), and more than a little nonsensical when considered after the fact. But it also delivers atmosphere, goosebumps, and more than a few good solid scares, and barrels through its plot with enough energy that no one watching would be bored. It’s a solid hamburger movie, with enough sizzle to last until the closing credits.

Much of its entertainment success must be attributed to the casting of Vincent Price as Dr. Frederick Loren, millionaire and serial husband. On the downswing as an A-list box-office draw, Price is nevertheless here at the height of his screen-dominating powers, with his well-combed hair and his pointed mustachios and his cultured but hard-edged manner that doesn’t let you decide whether he’s the good guy or the bad guy. Dr. Loren’s relationship with his younger wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) could be described as “genial loathing.” She’s the fourth in a string of wives who have all died under less-than-watertight circumstances; she characterizes him as insanely jealous, while he, naturally, considers his suspicions well-placed, and accuses her of attempting to murder him surreptitiously in order to inherit his massive fortune.

A portrait of marital bliss.

Their clash is brought to a head through a party which Loren claims was his wife’s idea, though he controls the setting and the guest list: A haunted house party. The house in question has been the scene of seven brutal murders in the past hundred years (though the house used for the exteriors, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1924, doesn’t fit the bill at all), and the current owner and brother of the last victim, Watson Pritchett (Elisha Cook), insists that malevolent ghosts have staked their claim on it.

Pritchett is one of the invited guests this night, as are:

- Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), pilot;

- Ruth Bridgers (Julie Mitchum), newspaper columnist;

- Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal), psychologist; and

- Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), an employee of one of Loren’s businesses.

Though none of them have ever met Loren or each other, they all accepted the invitation to the all-night gathering, mainly because Loren guaranteed each of them $10,000 to stay the night, and they all need the money. The terms are simple: At midnight, the caretakers will leave and bolt the only door from the outside, and the guests will stay the night with Dr. and Mrs. Loren, and any ghosts who happen to be in evidence. The caretakers will return at 8am, and $10,000 will be given to each of the guests… or their next of kin, as appropriate. There is no electricity; there are no phones. Bars secure all of the windows, and the front door is made of solid steel.

Bite the fingers! Bite the fingers!

It’s a setup taken directly from the “spooky old house” flicks cranked out by Monogram and other cheapie outfits during the ’30s and ’40s, which makes it all the more impressive that Castle managed to create such a legitimate air of menace from such well-worn plot elements. Part of the suspense does come from the fact that the existence of any ghosts is left unresolved right up until the climax. In those earlier movies, “supernatural” occurrences were always shown to be the result of a Scooby-Doo-like human plot, but by the ’50s, the unearthly had reasserted itself in horror films, and so one could not assume that everything would turn out to have the expected “rational explanation.”

But part of it is that menacing things keep happening, to the point where the ghostly explanation almost looks most plausible. Most of them happen to or around Nora Manning, the designated innocent among the guests; almost before they have their coats off, she’s nearly smashed by a falling chandelier, and it’s not long before her nerves are frayed by mysterious failures of candle light, a spectral hag who glides along the floor instead of walking, and the appearance in her suitcase of a severed head — presumably the one never recovered from a previous murder victim. In fact, Nora is fully ready to give up the prospect of the reward money and take to her heels before the midnight lockup… except that the caretakers’ watch apparently runs fast. Three minutes before 12 o’clock, the door is fastened tight.

And then the murders start.

Sing it, sister!

Now, let’s be clear here: The plot, when finally revealed, makes absolutely no sense. It’s got “first draft” written all over it, with phantasmic stunts which are in the end supposed to be the work of human agency (told ya there’d be spoilers!), yet with no clue as to how they’re accomplished. The denouement hinges on the fact that Annabelle has a pre-existing relationship with one of the guests (I’m still trying to play nice, spoiler-wise), but no one explains how that is supposed to work with Frederick having chosen the guests without her input. And the very climax involves a skeleton which is supposed to be Frederick Loren’s, even though said skeleton is obviously at least six inches shorter than Vincent Price.

Vincent Price and his noodly appendage.

But these are all after-the-fact observations. (Well, maybe not the bit about Shorty McBones.) Like any good example of showmanship, Castle keeps you from concentrating on the deficiencies and plot holes by pure flash and spectacle. When you’ve got Vincent Price smirking and slinking, Elisha Cook drunkenly proclaiming the bloodthirstiness of the spooks, and Carolyn Craig screaming for all her mighty pipes are worth, who cares about such niceties as plot consistency and suspension of disbelief?

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 2
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
  • Elisha Cook (Wilson Pritchett) played “Samuel T. Cogley,” Kirk’s defense attorney, in the original episode “Court Martial”